Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 21

BWW Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA'S AMAZING NIGHT at At The Balboa Theatre
by Ron Bierman - December 16, 2019

The San Diego Opera's first Detour Series performance this season was 'One Amazing Night' with Soprano Ailyn Pérez, tenor Joshua Guerrero and accompanist Abdiel Vázquez. All are outstanding young award winners with impressive resumes. The first half featured operatic arias, enjoyable and worth the t...

BWW Review: Heartbeat Opera's Take on Weber's FREISCHUTZ Hits the Mark
by Richard Sasanow - December 10, 2019

Since it's highly unlikely that the Met will take on Carl Maria von Weber's DIE FREISCHUTZ (frequently translated as THE MARKSMAN) anytime soon--or even in the lifetime of any baby born this year--we should be grateful to Heartbeat Opera for bringing it to New York audiences through December 15, in ...

BWW Review: OTELLO , Royal Opera House
by Gary Naylor - December 10, 2019

Two years on, Otello is revived in all its austere majesty, albeit a majesty that can be demanding to watch across a three hours running time....

BWW Review: Tchaikovsky's QUEEN Reigns and a Star is Born at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - December 04, 2019

I know it takes a leap of faith for the Met to schedule something outside the ABC operas--AIDA, BOHEME, CARMEN plus a TOSCA, TURANDOT and a few others--and go for something a little more off the beaten track. Tchaikovsky's QUEEN OF SPADES certainly falls into that category, even though it isn't exac...

BWW Review: THE ASTOUNDING ASTANA BALLET at The Saban Theatre
by Valerie-Jean Miller - December 04, 2019

November 22, 2019 Astonishing in their choice of repertoire, their innovative choreography, their elaborate and colorfully creative costuming and their commanding performance of the choreography. Don't let this first photo confuse you. This Company is so many things, and the picture represents b...

Photos/Reviews: THE QUEEN OF SPADES at the Metropolitan Opera, New York
by Alan Henry - December 04, 2019

Get a first look and check out reviews for the Met Opera's The Queen of Spades! Tchaikovsky's eerie thriller of imperial Russia has its first performances at the Met since 2011. Tenor Yusif Eyvazov is Hermann, the fanatical gambler whose obsession with a powerful secret drives him to madness. Sopran...

BWW Review: COSI FAN TUTTE Meets GREASE At The Juilliard School
by George Weinhouse - November 25, 2019

Of numerous operaphiles I have encountered, there is a fair amount of partisanship when it comes  to COSI FAN TUTTE by Mozart.  People either love it or dislike it.  I believe the plot is partially to blame; an aging bachelor challenges two younger friends to test their fiancees' devotion and suppos...

BWW Review: MANON LESCAUT at War Memorial Opera House
by Maria Nockin - November 25, 2019

On November 24, 2019, San Francisco Opera presented Giacomo Puccini's third opera, MANON LESCAUT with two spectacularly large-voiced singers, Liana Haroutounian and Brian Jagde. In a most forthright manner, Director Olivier Tambosi told the story of Renato Des Grieux' unrequited love for Manon, the ...

BWW Review: DEATH IN VENICE, Royal Opera House
by Gary Naylor - November 22, 2019

David McVicar's compelling new production of Benjamin Britten's last opera is an extraordinary tour-de-force that takes you inside a troubled mind and leaves you as ill-at-ease as you might expect, but strangely uplifted too, the beauty present in even a dying world underlined and celebrated....

BWW Review: TRAVIATA at Opera WROCLAW - Feel The Breath Of The Universe
by Natalia Jarczynska - November 21, 2019

Have you ever wandered why two cheesecakes based on one recipe are slightly different? Even tough you use the same flour, sugar and cheese the taste is not the same. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse. But if you take great ingredients like Traviata, big budget, good voices, Grazyna Szapolo...

BWW Review: It's TRISTAN Interruptus Again, with Goerke and Gould in Act II of the Wagner Epic
by Richard Sasanow - November 19, 2019

When New Yorkers last saw a concert performance of Act II of Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE--in the spring of 2018 with the Boston Symphony under Nelsons--a major singer was trying on one of the title characters for size. That was tenor Jonas Kaufmann. This time, it was Isolde who was ready for her clo...

BWW Review: Bring on the Jugglers, Philip Glass's AKHNATEN Finally Arrives at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - November 16, 2019

It has taken 35 years for Philip Glass's AKHNATEN to get to the Met, since its premiere at the Staatsoper in Stuttgart in 1984. If you're an acolyte of Glass, Phelim McDermott's production, designed by Tom Pye, made it well worth the wait; if you're not, there's enough going on to keep you occupied ...

BWW Review: FELLOW TRAVELERS at Boston Lyric Opera
by Andrew Child - November 14, 2019

When I first saw Boston Lyric Opera's promotional images for Fellow Travelers, a new opera by Greg Pierce and Gregory Spears, in a production that premiered at Minnesota Opera, I was incredibly wary. Photos of conventionally attractive white men in their boxers clinging to each other in a fit of pas...

BWW Review: Austin Opera Dazzles With RIGOLETTO
by Lynn Beaver - November 13, 2019

Austin Opera's latest effort, Verdi's, RIGOLETTO dazzles in every way. They absolutely outdid themselves this time....

Review: Bavarians under Jansons with Damrau as Soloist Turn Back the Clock at Carnegie Hall
by Richard Sasanow - November 12, 2019

According to the Carnegie Hall program, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was founded just a year after the most modern pieces on last Friday's program were written. Those were Richard Strauss's “Four Last Songs,” composed in 1948, some of the most gorgeous music he wrote. Though I came for the ...

BWW Review: Calgary Opera Opens Their Season on a High Night with LA BOHÈME
by Vicki Trask - November 11, 2019

From the moment the lights go down in the Southern Jubilee Auditorium, you as an audience are transported into 19th century Paris. A small apartment filled with destitute artists with dreams bigger than their bank accounts. Five acts, three fifteen-minute intermissions, and an aria or two later, the...

BWW Review: THE MAGIC FLUTE at Washington National Opera
by Jenny Minich - November 05, 2019

The magic of the WNO's THE MAGIC FLUTE is that it is captivating for all ages and a tempting proposition for first-timers and opera-buffs alike....

BWW Review: THE MAGIC FLUTE, Royal Opera House
by Gary Naylor - November 05, 2019

A big Harry Potterish serpent, a Salad Daysy enchanted glockenspiel, a Scooby-Dooish birdman, a pre-Ford Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and enough underground conspiracies to keep the most fervent follower of QAnon frothing at the mouth - what's not to like?...

BWW Review: All-Star RICHARD TUCKER GALA is a One-of-a-Kind Treat at Carnegie Hall with Winner Oropesa
by Richard Sasanow - October 29, 2019

It's hard to imagine the logistics in putting together a complex program like the one that the audience at Carnegie Hall was treated to on Sunday evening for the 2019 RICHARD TUCKER GALA. But New York-born conductor James Gaffigan pulled it off wonderfully with the help of members of the Met Orchest...

BWW Review: Jamie Barton Shines in All-Singing, All-Dancing Gluck ORFEO from Mark Morris at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - October 27, 2019

With apologies to Gluck, “Che faremmo senza Jamie Barton?”—'Where would we be without mezzo Jamie Barton?”--in the revival of Mark Morris's production of ORFEO ED EURIDICE at the Met, under Mark Wigglesworth's firmly rhythmic baton. ORFEO, written in the mid-18th century, was an opera of a different...

BWW Review: MACBETH at WA Opera
by Cicely Binford - October 22, 2019

a?oeDouble, double, toil and troublea?? has made its way to His Majesty's Theatre, but instead of this famous line being spoken by the usual three witches, it (or an approximation of it) is sung in Italian by eighteen classically trained witches. WA Opera's production of Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth ope...

BWW Review: The San Diego Opera Brings a Thrilling AIDA
by Ron Bierman - October 22, 2019

The San Diego Opera's AIDA served Verdi's marvelous score without the usual extravagant sets and throngs of spear-carrying tunic led Egyptian soldiers. Although that conceded a bit of excitement, especially during the triumphal march scene, exceptional singers and musicians held the audience's atten...

BWW Review: JAVIER CAMARENA RECITAL at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
by Maria Nockin - October 21, 2019

On the evening of October 20, 2019, Los Angeles Opera presented a recital by Javier Camarena and pianist Ángel Rodríguez at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Camarena is the Mexican tenor who made news at the Metropolitan Opera when he and the orchestra under Fabio Luisi repeated their rendition of Don...

BWW Review: Giving in to Hannah Lash's DESIRE at Columbia's Miller Theatre
by Richard Sasanow - October 19, 2019

It's easy to give yourself over to the music--and the musicians--that Lash has created (both music and libretto) from the very first notes of the devastatingly beautiful score. It is performed by three bold singers--the commanding mezzo Kirsten Sollek, the determined baritone Christopher Dylan Herbe...

BWW Review: ARIZONA OPERA STUDIO CONCERT at Mon Orchid Gallery
by Maria Nockin - October 15, 2019

On Monday October 14, 2019, Arizona Opera and its Valley Friends presented a concert of arias by the Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artists at the Mon Orchid Gallery, a small hall with excellent, if somewhat live, acoustics. As a rule, AZ Opera chooses six singers and one pianist to be their studio arti...